Obviously, the last thing you want on a battlefield is a bunch of rusty knights and the last 12 months has seen us get quite rusty indeed.
As we’re slowly moving out of lockdown, we’ve been looking at ways to start-up training again, while keeping within the government and also sporting body guidelines.
Recently there was a relaxation of the lockdown rules which allow there to be organised training sessions for sports in England so we took the chance to get out and swing a sword, even if it was a plastic waster, one Saturday afternoon in one of the parks in Ipswich.
There was a nice mix of old and new members who came along and we’ve started the long journey to relearn everything that we’ve forgotten over the last few months. We started with some footwork, getting the movements and balance back, before moving onto the 5 strike locations of the head, arms and legs and the blocks we use.
The two hours flew by. One or two passers-by stopped to have a look and take photos but most of the other park-goers seemed to take a bunch of people with plastic swords in their stride.
We took the precaution of contacting the Suffolk Police to let them know we would be training outside as we didn’t want to get an armed response unit turning up and waving guns at us, they’d be the wrong era for a start.
Hopefully there will be more sessions soon. Keep watching our Facebook page for more updates, but in the meantime we all need to go and lie down for a bit. There are muscles we forgot existed which need to stop aching.
Photos courtesy of Fiona Hubert and Dave Lloyd.
